Midterms? What midterms? HAHAHAHHAHAHA kill me
What up? After some years of not going to conventions here in the PH due to personal reasons, I finally acquired the motivation to break the non-tradition and cover a non-gaming-related event for once for this blog! Here’s my recap of Cosplay Mania 2016 Day 1!
Oh, man, it’s really been a while. The conventions held the SMX Convention Center are always the better conventions when compared to the ones crammed inside the Megatrade Halls. I think it’s been well over 3 years since I last went to a convention. The repetitiveness of the cons at the Megatrade Halls got to us as a group and the fact that college is a thing were ample reasons to stop attending. The main thing that convinced me to go to one again was really simple.
Rippi. PH. Period.
Nothing glimmered in my mind better than the thought of seeing the seiyuu of my favorite μ’s character perform. Sure, it won’t be the Love Live! songs, but hey. Waifu bias works that way. I think that’s supposed to be the case. Suddenly I feel all too ashamed of not listening to any music made by any of the μ’s seiyuus. That’s a story for another day.
Ahh, the ever-too-familiar escalator to the con. The events have always been in the second floor function rooms. Though, I think the upcoming Animax Carnival would be at the ground floor?
Even before I enter the convention center, the familiar vibe of a convention was there. Cosplayers, both the serious ones and the ones who just chose to wear a hat or one other form of attire, photographers, guys and gals wearing anime T-shirts, and fan group meet-ups, along with some “admins” of various groups I’m not even aware of existed.
With a Gold ticket in hand, I familiarly entered the convention hall. Because it took up around 3 function halls, it was huge with still lots of space to spare. There were freebies associated with the Gold ticket, too, along with a calendar/map and a fan from NHK World. I lost that fan somehow, though, after a 4 pm lunch.
I arrived there at 11:30, lots of time to roam around and notice the changes to major events inside the convention as time passes by. To describe the sections briefly:
Lifestyle (Yellow): More of the corner for daily affairs. The Embassy of Japan – JICC is located here along with the DFA. Some fan-made items are also sold here.
Blockbuster (Red): The electronic-related stuff. The most stand-out stuff here are NHK World, which have their trivia quiz, Ludus and their Force of Will area, and Daiso. Yeah. That Daiso.
Gaming and Fan Fair (Orange): Quantum. With that Pokemon game that costs 8 tokens to play. The fan fair was filled with indie illustrators galore. Not a huge fan, but it’s awesome to see a sizable number of them out there, taking up three rows of 32 booths. I should gather the courage to get a drawing commissioned some time. XD
Collectibles (Blue): Where my interests’ at, where my money’s planned to go, but unfortunately, things don’t go as planned. No Rinnie figures, no take-homes. There was even a stall that printed shirts. They had Love Live! shirts on sale, even, but still no Rin. Ugh. Aqours tho.
Meals (Green): ’nuff said. The food stalls that can charge you for so much because you don’t have to leave the comfort of the convention.
I frequented Wakuwaku because a good friend was an exhibitor there, and I had a good laugh with him as he chats how the Maki-related items disappear one after the other. Sincerely hope they manage things as they are. Glad to see them thriving in action here at CosMania, and I’m truly surprised to see how sir Joma’s sacrifices of ridicule to grab BL stuff paid off not only today, but ever since the other cons and maybe even for the next ones to come. Cheers!
There was also a Rinnie tote bag for 1200. I would have taken it, but the fact that I wouldn’t be able to put anything in it from the potential hauls of the day made me think otherwise.
Wakuwaku also served like a home base for me who didn’t know what to do for the 6 hours of browsing/waiting for Alkaeid, and ultimately, the concert. I took some of this time to muster the courage to take pictures of cosplayers. I missed lots of opportunities to grab ones of those I really liked. Gotta develop those social skills more, Percy.
Well, Domo-kun isn’t really a cosplayer; more of a mascot of NHK World and Tokyo Performance Domo, who also performed with them.
Around 3 pm, they opened the other hall, Hall SP, for the Cosplay Competition. Gold ticket-holders also get to watch the event. Sweet. That also killed time. Not to mention, the cosplay event itself was awesome, with professional cosplayers as judges while naturally cosplaying.
Damn, it had to be Hiko to be the one that didn’t get shown here. Her Kashima so hngggg
The individual cosplays were amazing, but since they were all moving around, the resulting pictures sucked, accompanied even greater by my all-the-more worse photo-capturing skills. There was also a cosplay “battle”, where a group would re-enact a battle scene from whatever series.
With that done and Alkaeid arriving shortly after, I decided to take a break and show Alkaeid around. He made me join the NHK World trivia quiz. I was complaining to him how the category has changed from places in Japan to food, sumo, and now fashion, which I know nothing about. I Kanji’d my way to getting the answer correctly. Yay. XD
And with the clock ticking to 6:30 pm, we had to part ways. He and his brother bought VIP Seating tickets for the concert. Lucky him. I had to endure Gold standing. But hey. Rippi!!!
A seemingly long line, but I managed to get in front. Not that front is close enough, anyway.
And of course, it was time to enjoy the concert with our own eyes, and not with our devices, so no pics here. A breakdown:
1. CGT Runner-up Franz Uy singing 2 songs, neither of which I know. If winning a cosplay competition allows you to sing in front of fans as an opening act, then, damn, that’s awesome!
2. Tokyo Performance Domo perfoming the Domobics with Domo, and 2 more songs I don’t know. I’ll make magic later to know which ones were they. They introduced themselves, with wishes to come back with the full 9 members, because only 3 of them were there. They had the vision of NHK World, which is to promote Japan, well, all over the world. The pig-tailed one was kinda cute, too. XD
Oh, also. I think it was that same pig-tailed girl who is half-Filipino, and so, she made a mini-speech in Filipino. Ahh, when Japanese people speak Filipino, you can really hear how their first language affects their pronunciation of the words. A conjunction like “at” (and) would be “atto”, with the “o” still significantly heard. And, oh, the Filipino bias of when foreigners speak our language. lmao
3. Starmarie. 11 songs, probably a bulk of it from their newest album. I’ll make magic later to know which ones were they. I think they did 3 or 4 songs at once without taking a quick break to address the crowd. Idols, man. They’re super good. And I’ll note here how the Japanese still struggle with English, yet they’re entering a state where their conyo (code-switching in between sentences) actually allows them to communicate fairly to non-Japanese speakers.
At this point, my legs were getting tired, but once Rippi entered the stage, that suddenly disappeared. The hype was super real! Also, thanks to the RippiPH group, I managed to get a hard copy of the callbook they made along with a pin. The passion of these guys at that time was unrivaled!
Here’s her setlist, though she wanted to show that to everyone before the show, so it seemed.
- Kataomoi Sekkin
- Heartache -Koi to Yokan-
- Sirius
- KISS KISS KISS
- Hajimaritai Canon
It was awesome to see her chat with us after a song. It was also a bit of a shame how she couldn’t express herself to most of the crowd the first time around because of the language barrier, that which I’ve half-passed. Felt proud of those moments I understood what she was saying before the interpreter stepped in after Sirius, iirc. I do like how she was still able to express herself at the times before the interpreter did anything.
Rippi was really surprised and can’t believe that she has fans all over the world, much more in the PH. How I worded it sounds like a showbiz comment, don’t you think? But if you heard her herself say it, you’d think twice. During the autograph signing (which I wasn’t able to go to because money and first 100), when she entered the room, someone said “Ah, it’s Rippi. Kawaii…”, and that floored her, well at least, when she was retelling it. She’s been to the PH thrice: twice in Cebu, and once today in Manila. Those times, it was raining, but today, it was sunshine galore. She also got to eat halo-halo. That made her not want to leave. lmao
“I’m gonna work hard in Japan so I can come back to the Philippines!”
Yay, Rippi~ While I’ll work hard to learn Japanese so I can understand you better and maybe even become an interpreter for future events. Awwww yeah new career path unlocked! HAHAHAH
Her “last” song KISS KISS KISS made me exaggeratedly hyper, probably because she said it’ll be her last, but when we called for an encore, she happily gave us one not even from her latest album RippiHolic. It was an epic event to be a part of.
Woah, the post became this long, so I’ll end it with a barrage of pics I took. Too bad I can’t go on Day 2, though. Until the next event, I will see you because people fear the UnKnWn. (THE ONE because it was a day of firsts in a day 1 event, I guess)
Nihon Otaku-Hikikomori Kyoukai 